Yesterday, I wrote about our day at Tokyo DisneySea. Later on our same trip, my daughter and I spent a day at Shanghai Disneyland, my last Disney resort in the world to visit. The two parks could not have been more different. Shanghai Disneyland is more like the traditional Disneyland/Magic Kingdom, but there were still significant differences from the previous Disney parks we’ve visited.
We visited on a Saturday in June and purchased tickets that included Premier Access to the Zootopia: Hot Pursuit ride and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride. Surprisingly, line queues were not as long as we experienced at Tokyo DisneySea, but it was a rainy day that might have made some visitors stay away.
Hit: Ride Technology
Shanghai Disneyland is the newest stand-alone Disney park built in 2016, so it’s really no surprise that the ride technology is more advanced than in other Disney theme parks. Rides were smoother, and animatronics looked more realistic. I was so impressed with the Peter Pan ride, which is fundamentally the same ride as the original in the US parks but felt so much more modern.
Hit: Pirates of the Caribbean Ride
Before we went to Shanghai Disneyland, I knew that its Pirates of the Caribbean ride got a lot of buzz. I figured it had some updated animatronics and looked newer than the other parks’ version of the ride. But I was totally shocked with how different and fantastic this ride was! It’s lightyears ahead of the other Disney park pirate rides. The boats spin and turn and at one point are on a roller coaster track. I was wowed by this ride! It’s now on my personal Top 5 Disney Rides list.
Hit: Zootopia
Shanghai Disneyland’s Zootopia area is the newest section of the park. The theming is outstanding!
We also really enjoyed the Zootopia: Hot Pursuit new dark ride. It had one of the longer wait times, so I was glad we had Premier Access for it.
Hit: Disneytown
The park exit led us right into Disneytown, which is similar to the US parks’ Downtown Disney. It was a really charming area with a lot of restaurant choices. We ate dinner at Donald’s Dine’n Delights and had some fantastic Donald-themed food.
Miss: Entry Maze Queue
One of the most tiring things about our day at Shanghai Disneyland was just getting into the park. The queue to get in was a string of long mazes that zig-zagged the length of nearby Wishing Star Lake. I’m not even kidding when I say that once we arrived at the park entrance area, we walked for 45 minutes non-stop in these maze lines. Some people were running past us. It was a crazy start to the day. By the time we got past the gates, we were both sweating profusely. Later in the day, I figured out why the entry lines were set up like that (more on that below).
Miss: Character Lines
Duffy and Friends characters are insanely popular in Asia, and of course the lines to meet those characters are long. My daughter wanted to meet her favorite Duffy friend, LinaBell. The line was 4 1/2 hours long. That’s crazy! I can’t imagine waiting in a line that long, but people were doing it.
Miss: Line Cutting and Pushing
This is a tough one to talk about, but I won’t sugarcoat it. We experienced pushing and line cutting at Shanghai Disneyland. It seemed like every time the ride queue went around a corner, someone was trying to get ahead of us. When we were in line for Peter Pan ride, 3 members of a family of 8 pushed ahead of us. I didn’t understand why they would want to split up their family like that just to get one car ahead.
While we were in line for Captain Jack’s Stunt Spectacular show, an announcement kept repeating over and over in Chinese and in English that said “no running.” I didn’t think much of it. But right before the theatre doors opened, the crowd started pushing, and we got caught up in it and were basically swept away to the door. Then once inside the theatre, everyone was running and climbing over each other to get to a seat. My daughter and I were both so shocked! We chose some seats on the side of the theatre just to remove ourselves from the chaos.
In retrospect, I believe the entry queues to the park at the front gate are designed to be so long to minimize pushing and spread out the crowd. After I got home, I Googled “line cutting Shanghai Disneyland” and found it mentioned in several reviews, on message boards and even in the news a few weeks ago:
Even if I had known about pushing and line cutting in advance, we still would have visited Shanghai Disneyland. I’m not mentioning this to discourage you from visiting the park, but it’s something to be aware of, especially when entering shows.
Overall Thoughts
We still had a great day at Shanghai Disneyland despite the misses I mentioned above. The lower crowds enabled us to get through all the rides we wanted to ride without having to purchase Premier Access for everything. It was fun to compare the rides to the other Disney parks and to see families in another country enjoy the Disneyland experience. Next week, I will reveal my favorite Disney park out of all 12 stand-alone Disney parks.
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I’m in agreement with @Retired Gambler on this one. There’s a cultural aspect that views people as suckers if they stand in line. From Hong Kongers I’ve spoken with I gather that’s part of why the natives of Hong Kong are so vehement about specifying that they’re not from the mainland.
I’m a bit surprised that a Winnie The Pooh ride was allowed in the park considering the memes that have upset certain people in China.
Great review and nice work as always. I appreciate the contrast you provide between parks.
You’re lucky with the rain I think. We went on a sunny Thursday three weeks ago and it was pretty packed. The major rides all had lines of over an hour. Zootopia was an hour wait to get into the land and then 2 more for the ride. Even with the limiting of people going into Zootopia, it was pretty crazy in there, lots of long lines for photo op places. What struck me the most was how many people seemed to be at the park just for photos. So many young women dressed in cute outfits with a bag full of photo props and their boyfriends taking pictures and videos of them. We didn’t see that nearly as much in Hong Kong or Tokyo. We bought a lot of DPAs which were $100 a pop for my family of four but we justified it with the low cost of admission. I agree that Pirates was so much better than anticipated! It’s really almost a different ride.
I think a lot of the line cutting and pushing is cultural. While Asian countries like Japan, Korea and Singapore seem very orderly and structured other, like Vietnam and Thailand, are chaotic. Much of China seems to follow the chaotic route. I remember my first trip to Hong Kong when the tour guide (a native) went on and on about the “mainland” Chinese. As would be expected of a British colony Hong Kong was pretty orderly but he said the Chinese were rude, loud, pushy and left trash everywhere. Not sure why but seems like your experience was consistent with everything I’ve heard.